It was hot — August-in-Los-Angeles hot — and a small band of USC students trudged along a half-mile corridor of the L.A. River through bird poop and algae, surrounded by steep, concrete walls.
The students, armed with camera gear and note pads, were on a six-day journey to document the river’s ecology for a project they dubbed “fifty-one miles,” named after the length of the man-made watershed.
An undertaking of that scale would’ve been impossible without money for gear, food, first aid and compensating contributors. That’s where USC’s Arts & Climate Collective came in, an organization that awards small grants to student-run projects like fifty-one miles that look to tackle environmental issues.